Lenovo T410s 14-in Core i5 Optimus Notebook Review

Introduction and Specifications

There is no name in the laptop business that carries more weight than ThinkPad. These durable laptops have been given almost mythical status thanks to countless personal accounts of ThinkPad laptops surviving spills, falls and other destruction.

Keeping up with the expectations of fans can be difficult, however – any change can result in a nasty backlash. ThinkPad’s reputation came into jeopardy when IBM sold the brand off to Lenovo, a Chinese electronics company, in 2005. Predictably racist rants about how ThinkPads would quickly become cheap Chinese knock-offs ensued. There are still those who to this day swear that Lenovo's acquisition of the brand was the beginning of a death spiral, but the truth is that ThinkPads continue to thrive. Lenovo recently celebrated the 60 millionth ThinkPad sold, and to commemorate the event they've added an interesting new feature to some laptops – Nvidia Optimus. The green team's graphics switching technology is now available on some T410, T510 and T410s laptops.

Of these laptops the T410s is the one that could stand the most to gain. PC Perspective has not examined the T410s previously, but a simple tour through a few T410s reviews will unveil that battery life has been one of the most common complaints against the laptop. Optimus could help in this area significantly.

We're not just reviewing Optimus, however – the T410s is itself an interesting piece of kit. Let's take a look at what the review unit brings to the table:

This configuration represents the “ThinkPad T410s with switchable graphics” option found on the Lenovo website. The retail price of the laptop is $1,699, which puts this laptop into a category that includes stiff competitors like the MacBook Pro 15” and Sony Vaio Z as well as HP's EliteBook business laptops. Let's see if this ThinkPad is worthy of its name.